Influence of Glutamate Transporter Densities on Glutamate Transporter Currents and Ca2+ Dynamics in Astrocytes due to Aging Processes

Abstract

Astrocytes are specialized glial cells that cover the entire central nervous system and play an important role in synaptic transmission as well as ion and neurotransmitter homeostasis. Since the functions of astrocytes are very complex, computer models can aid experiments. We used the multi-compartment model from Oschmann et al. (2017) to analyze the effects of glutamate transporters. Those transporters are important for the removal of glutamate from the synaptic cleft as well as on the Ca2+ dynamics and the glutamate currents. Several studies have shown that the expression of these transporters changes during the course of life and that there can be a natural decline with increasing age. This may be one of the most important risk factors in neurodegenerative diseases. For this reason, we analyzed the influence of the different protein densities of the glutamate transporters EAAT1/GLAST and EAAT2/GLT-1 regarding different age groups and species, taking into account data generated in vivo and in vitro.

Keywords

• astrocytes
• glutamate transporter
• ca2+ dynamics
• computational model
• aging